


Petal-Shaped Epiphanies

by Willow_bird



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Disaster Gay, Botanist Neil Josten, Gardener Andrew Minyard, I will neither confirm nor deny if Neil is a witch, M/M, Neil Josten General Disaster, POV Andrew Minyard, Slight Modern Fantasy Setting, also some hurt/comfort, very little plot, we only have aesthetic and fluff in this house
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-21 14:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30023085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird
Summary: The witch next door kept stealing his shit and Andrew Minyard was not amused.It had started with his hellebore, just a few snips that perhaps a lesser gardener would not have noticed - but Andrew Minyard wasnota lesseranything, thank you very fucking much. Then, a couple days later, an entire oleander sapling had been kidnapped. Dug right out of the ground like Andrew wasn’t going to fucking notice.(Hint: Andrew noticed.)---Andrew is a gardener that primarily grows poisonous and other dangerous plants. Neil is the botanist next door who keeps sneaking onto his property to steal them.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 26
Kudos: 113





	1. Oleander

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chubbytomato](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chubbytomato/gifts).



> Hello! I was so so so excited to get this prompt for my very first RBB event. It was so great working with Tan and getting to write a story around their amazing art!!
> 
> I'll be adding tags as we go and will post Tues/Thurs for the next two weeks. If you have any questions feel free to comment or ping me over on tumblr. 
> 
> HUGE thank you to my bestie [@likearecord](https://archiveofourown.org/users/likearecord/pseuds/likearecord) for being my beta and all-around cheerleader for getting through this thing. I probably would not have survived it if not for her *all the hearts*

_“Throughout the night // When there's no direct light  
And a thin veil of clouds // Keeps the stars out of sight  
I can smell the colors // Outside on my lawn  
The moist green organic // That my feet tread upon  
And the black oleander // Surrounded by blues  
I'm soon overwhelmed // By olfactory hues...”  
\-- Lawn Boy by Phish_

-

The witch next door kept stealing his shit and Andrew Minyard was not amused.

It had started with his hellebore, just a few snips that perhaps a lesser gardener would not have noticed - but Andrew Minyard was _not_ a lesser _anything_ , thank you very fucking much. Then, a couple days later, an entire oleander sapling had been kidnapped. Dug right out of the ground like Andrew wasn’t going to fucking notice.

_‘It isn’t worth it,’_ his brother Aaron had said when Andrew had declared his intent to march next door and demand his sapling back. _‘Besides, what if he casts a spell on you or something? Look, just let it go.’_

Now, Andrew didn’t _not_ follow his brother’s very sound advice. He wasn’t wrong, after all. Witches weren’t really people you wanted to cross - and if this witch was stealing hellebore and oleander then it probably wasn’t for anything good. Both were extremely dangerous on their own. Andrew was no witch, but he knew enough about the plants he cultivated to know what one might do with them. The last thing he should do was confront a witch in his own territory….

Which was why he was hiding out in his own damn garden for the third night in a row, waiting for the little bastard to make his next move. Perhaps Andrew wasn’t prepared to take on a witch in his own territory, but in _his_ garden he was more than ready, more than willing to throw down.

The first night Andrew hadn’t much expected an intrusion - since so far the sneakthief hadn’t hit two nights in a row, but he hadn’t wanted to take the chance of missing him. The second night he’d used the time to tend to his moonflower bushes. It was on the third night that he was apparently going to get lucky, because just as the time crept past midnight, a shadow appeared at the top of the wall separating his and the witch’s property.

Andrew went very still within the shadows where he waited. He tightened his grip on the sturdy broom he’d grabbed as a weapon and readied himself for the moment the intruder landed on the grass.

(A broom would only bruise or incapacitate while a rake or shovel might spill blood if things got messy - witch blood was said to be toxic and he wasn’t willing to risk spilling any on his charges.)

Be it by magic or the witch’s nefarious nature, he didn’t make any noise as he swung himself over the top of the wall and slid down the cold stone, landing in a crouch on Andrew’s side. There was no scrape, no thump, no catch of breath. If Andrew hadn’t investigated the garden thoroughly and found that the patch of grass was slightly trampled in this spot, thus knowing to watch from here exactly, he wouldn’t have known someone had come over the wall at all.

The witch stayed low to the ground as he crept away from the wall, then stood up straight and began to jog silently toward the belladonna bushes. Andrew tightened his grip again, then loosened and adjusted it to prepare to deliver the wake-up-call this witch clearly needed. Careful not to breathe (because witches could probably sense that shit), he drew his arms back and just as the wiley little fucker passed him he _swung_.

Either the witch was going faster than Andrew realized or a witch really did weigh the same as a duck because when contact was made, that fucker went _flying_.

Andrew gave himself a moment to reflect on that, gauging how much air the thief had achieved in his stellar wipe-out and giving his broom an appraising look. Satisfied, he approached the witch.

“Going somewhere?” he asked quietly, his voice empty of all inflection.

The witch, who had landed on his back, wheezed out something inarticulate.

“Didn’t catch that.” He came to a stop just a few steps away, broom in one hand with the tip of its staff pressing into the soft dirt, his other hand casually hooked into his pocket.

The witch pushed himself up tenderly. There was a gray hood pulled down over his face, the light from the moon hitting him just enough to show the twist of his mouth, lips slightly parted as he struggled to get his breath back.

Andrew watched him for another moment, waited until the sound of those short, ragged breaths smoothed to something steadier - not because he cared if the thief-witch was hurt or not, but because he wanted to make sure the man could fully hear and then answer his questions. He tapped the handle of the broom against the dirt twice to get his attention, then asked, “Why does a witch want an oleander sapling? What are you planning to do with it?”

Of anything Andrew might have expected to get as an answer, it was not, “I’m not a witch you asshole, I’m a botanist.”

“A what?” Andrew blinked, then frowned. He did not like being confused.

“A _botanist_. I study--”

“I know what a botanist does.”

“Amazing, then you aren’t as stupid as you look.”

“Says the guy who got caught sneaking into someone else’s garden,” Andrew shot back, annoyed now. The ‘botanist’ (Andrew was still skeptical) made a sound that might have been a laugh, rubbing one hand over his lower abdomen where Andrew must have nailed him with the broom. Then he reached up and pulled down his hood.

The man’s face was its own story. On one cheek was a cluster of burns, round and rough in a way that Andrew couldn’t place their cause - too big to be caused by a cigarette but not the right shape for a hot poker. The other cheek bore a crosshatch of slashes, the scars glinting almost silver in the moonlight - which now fully highlighted the marks as well as the dark circles that stained the soft spots under the bluest eyes Andrew had ever seen. Even with the scars, there was no mistaking how unquestionably _beautiful_ this man was. Andrew wasn’t sure whether it was the shine of his cosmonaut eyes or the twist of a not-quite-smirk on lips that looked way too soft, but all of a sudden he had a whole _new_ problem.

He refused to crush on his fucking witch-thief-botanist neighbor. No.

“I’m Neil,” said the bad idea.

And Andrew, lacking anything better to say, said, “You look like a witch.”

~~The witch~~ Neil chuckled, the sound a crackle of dry leaves under sturdy boots, at once tense and somehow morbidly amused. “Says the man with a broom,” he returned with an easy gesture.

Andrew tightened his grip on the broom, but Neil didn’t look worried about him using it again.

“You kidnapped my oleander sapling,” he said instead, internally cringing at the lack of venom in his voice. Most people were intimidated by his default flat tone and blank stare, but this botanist thief here looked at him like he could see right through him. Maybe he didn’t call himself a witch, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have some sort of sight or gift.

“I promise, she’s doing just fine. You can come visit her if you want.” Was… was this fucker _teasing_ him?

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “Or you could just give her back.”

“She likes it better at my place.”

“You _stole_ her, she didn’t have much of a choice,” Andrew pointed out.

“She was your smallest sapling, and she was overcrowded on the plot - it’s not like she was having a blast,” Neil said as he pushed himself up to stand. Andrew took some satisfaction from the way he winced and rubbed at his abdomen again. At least he’d come away from this encounter with some bruises to remember him by. Well, to remind him not to steal from his garden again. Yeah - that.

He was also mildly surprised to see that his thief was only a few scant inches taller than him. At five foot even, Andrew was used to a much greater difference in height - though it was somewhat annoying that even _this_ cheeky little cretin was taller than him.

“She was not overcrowded,” Andrew argued back with a frown. Who did this guy think he was, to tell him how to tend to _his_ oleander?

“Oh I think if you take a look at the plot you’ll find that she was. She’s doing much better in the pot I’ve got her in now.”

“You put her in a _pot_?” Andrew asked, and this time the disgust broke through.

Neil sniffed, indignant and wrong about it. “Yes. It has sunflowers on it.”

Andrew stared at him for a long moment. “You put an oleander sapling in a pot… with a sunflower on it.” It was not a question. He was just clarifying that the ‘botanist’ standing in front of him was really that much of a jackass.

“Sunflowers. Plural. They have faces, actually, smiling ones - and they’re dancing.”

“Now you are just fucking with me.”

“I would never,” declared the jackass - but the twitch of a grin at the corner of his mouth said otherwise.

“Liar,” Andrew accused. Neil only shrugged, the curve of his lips now flavored with amusement. Andrew wasn’t sure whether that made him want to kiss him or punch him in the face. Being around this botanist witch was beginning to get very taxing.

“Come over tomorrow and see for yourself then. Unless, I mean, you’re scared to go into the big bad witch’s house." There was ever so much of a sneer on his face, a distinct curl and weight in his tone when he said the word 'witch' that suggested Andrew wasn't the first one to make the assumption and he only had limited patience with the accusation. "Which would be completely understandable, of course. I know that I’m terrifying.”

There it was again. Andrew wanted to wipe that teasing little smirk off his stupid beautiful face, and he wasn’t sure whether he would rather do it with a fist to the teeth or by kissing him so thoroughly he forgot how to breathe.

“You do not scare me,” Andrew said instead - and though he was completely honest, he knew it sounded like he was insisting a bit too forcefully. He gritted his teeth when Neil only smirked at him. “Fine. I will come see what you have done to my sapling, and then I will take it back with me. And you will never trespass in my garden again.”

That smirk shifted to a bright grin and Neil rocked back on his heels. “Excellent. It’s a date then.”

Wait, what?

Before Andrew could clarify on that misleading terminology, Neil had already turned to head back to the spot of the wall that he’d come over. Andrew watched as he scaled it like a fucking squirrel. He perched at the top for just a moment and gave Andrew a two-finger salute, pressed to his temple, before dropping down the other side.

Andrew just watched the empty space where the botanist-thief had just been for a full two minutes before shaking his head and turning to head back toward his own house. Before he got halfway there, though, he paused and changed direction. When he arrived at the cluster of oleander saplings he crouched down and studied the spacing between these saplings and where he knew the stolen one had been.

“Fucking pest…” Andrew shook his head. Against his will the smallest tug of _something_ pulled at the corner of his mouth. Because Neil was right - the spacing was off and that sapling _would_ have been overcrowded.

Well, all that meant was that the man wasn’t entirely ignorant when it came to plants. Which… really shouldn’t be as attractive a trait as it was. But even if Andrew _thought_ that, it wasn’t like there was anyone around to know it.

Andrew pushed himself back up to his feet and headed back to the house. At the very least, tomorrow should be interesting.

-*-

Andrew did not tell his brother that he was going over to the alleged witch’s house the next day. Aaron would have only fussed and then he would have told _Nicky_ and Nicky would have made a drama of the whole thing - and, well, no one needed that. Still, he took precautions. He wore his knives, hidden in the armbands he never left the house without. Around his neck he wore an iron charm that was supposed to dampen the effect of magic (Nicky had gotten each of them one of the charms when the supposed witch moved next door).

See? He was prepared - though he did not think he would actually need the knives or the iron. Sure, they had been in Andrew’s own garden last night, and on his own turf Neil would probably be more powerful or whatever (if he was, despite his protests, actually a witch) - but Andrew liked to think that he was a good judge of people and their intentions and if Neil had wanted to do him harm he thought he would have done so last night.

Whatever Neil said, his house _did_ look like a witch’s house with its ivy-covered walls and overgrown lawn only barely visible through a rusted iron gate - the whole property was surrounded by an ancient-looking wall no less intimidating and impenetrable for its age. It was a large house with what had to be at least three or four floors, though was narrower than it was long. There was even a goddamn _spire_ topped with a crooked chimney that occasionally puffed out oddly colored smoke at all hours of the day and night.

While the driveway looped around from the gate up to where a malnourished old sports car sat half-drowned in overgrowth, Andrew diverted from it just past the entryway to take a broken stone footpath up to the front door. It was lined with weeds and wildflowers that were locked in a slow-moving battle for dominance over the yard. Here and there through the bright petals and twisted stems, Andrew caught glimpses of what was either lost statuary long since claimed by the wild flora, or curious creatures holding still as they watched him tread along their playground. He certainly _felt_ like he was being watched, anyway - whether the eyes on him were living or made of stone. Andrew supposed that if Neil actually _was_ a witch it wouldn’t matter much, because everyone knew that a witch could take anything living or dead and make it their unwitting spy.

The old steps of the front porch complained as Andrew closed the final distance to the front door. There was enough hissing and creaking and shuffling that he thought perhaps he’d upset some kind of nest, but nothing came out to attack his ankles so he decided he didn’t care much if he had or not.

The door opened before Andrew raised his hand to ring the bell.

(Which was a literal bell, by the way - the thin blue cord dangling from its yoke probably the only bit of _newness_ on the property. Its almost plastic sheen seemed violently out of place and Andrew had the sudden urge to take his good pair of shears to it so that it could be replaced with something rougher or more organic. Let it not be said that Andrew had no appreciation for aesthetic.)

Since last night, Andrew had managed to convince himself that Neil was not nearly as interesting or attractive as he had seemed during the witching hour under the glow of the moon. Surely, he was just an annoying little thief that had been more talkative than Andrew had been expecting, which had caught him off guard. The moon must have reflected from Neil’s eyes in a weird way, that’s why they’d seemed to have been spun from raw starlight. Andrew had just been tired from a full day of work followed by several hours of staking out the garden wall, it was nothing more than that.

Except the man standing in the doorway, looking particularly pleased to see him, was - if anything - _more_ beautiful in the daylight than he had been last night. His hair, which Andrew could now see was tied back in a short tuft at the nape of his neck, was a deep auburn - almost brown but for the flash of red and gold that gleamed when hit by the sun. The way loose strands kept wanting to curl rebelliously around Neil’s face made Andrew want to run his fingers through it, the sudden urge to do so strong enough that Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets. Those star-spun eyes? They did not reflect light like the moon or mimic a morning sky. Rather, they seemed to emanate their _own_ light, with the sky and the sea and the _delphinium kestrel_ herself cast as the actual plagiarists.

“You came,” Neil said, and the smile sounded just as good in his voice as it looked on his lips. Andrew fought the impulse to wrap his fingers around his iron pendant, just in case he was being enchanted. But Andrew had felt the press of that kind of magic before - he and his brother both had a natural resistance to it (probably the one good thing they’d ever gotten from their mother). This was not that - it was something much, much worse.

Genuine attraction. Andrew-fucking-Minyard was actually crushing on his maybe-not-a-witch neighbor. _Fuck._

“So little faith. I said I would. I thought witches could see the future or the nature of people at the very least.” His tone remained dry and unamused, but somehow he thought Neil could see how flustered he was beneath the surface.

“Not a witch,” Neil reminded him with a shrug that was too tense to be casual, and Andrew caught the way the other man's jaw tightened at the mention of that word: witch. Still, Neil tried to play it off, stepping back and holding the door open for him. “Just a botanist.”

The door swung shut behind him once Andrew made it into the hall. “Right,” he said with a heavy dose of skepticism. “Which is how you knew when I was going to show up. How you knew with such precision that you were able to open the door before I even rang the bell.”

“You’re just being pissy because you wanted to ring the bell.”

Andrew glared. Neil grinned back, then shook his head with a chuckle.

“It’s nothing that impressive. I have a motion detector installed on the gate. When it opens, I get an alert.” He pulled a very modern-looking phone out of his pocket (that, weirdly enough, seemed to be the same model Andrew owned) and gave it a little wave in front of him before tucking it away again. “I have just enough time to get down from my workroom by the time someone reaches the door.” He shrugged. “It happened to work out that I opened the door right before you rang the bell, but it wasn’t intentional.”

Andrew looked around at the narrow little entryway, which was in a similar state of willful neglect as the yard had been. “If you rushed down because you were afraid your property or home was about to be vandalized I am afraid you are already too late.”

Neil chuckled like he’d said something funny (which he had - Andrew just wasn’t used to people laughing at his particular brand of humor), then gave him another one of his annoyingly pretty smiles before saying the most absurd thing Andrew had ever heard:

“Nah, just excited you came, that’s all.” Then, while Andrew worked on processing _that_ , Neil turned and gestured for him to follow deeper into the house. “Come on, you’re here for Matilda.”

“Who the fuck is Matlida?” Andrew asked, though he realized the answer the second the words left his lips. _Matilda_ was the oleander that Neil had so ruthlessly kidnapped the other night. Though Andrew was beginning to reconsider that perhaps “ruthlessly” and “kidnapped” were both a bit harsh, especially as they entered the kitchen and he got a good look at her new setup.

Neil’s kitchen - if it could really be called that at this point - more resembled a poor man’s greenhouse (or a hedge witch’s potion room), with various greenery taking up all the counterspace and both the small kitchen table and the island. Matilda had been potted in a spacious but kitchy sort of planter - which did, indeed, have happy sunflowers on it that appeared to be… dancing? It sat on the table amid a number of other smaller potted flora. She was _already_ looking better, and it had only been a couple of days. Andrew wasn’t sure whether to feel more insulted or impressed.

“See? Thriving. Now that she isn’t being smothered thanks to your negligence.” The words were said almost fucking _cheerfully_ as the ~~witch~~ botanist stood in front of the table, hands on his hips as he admired the little oleander sprout.

“If you’ve been in my garden at all - which you have, because you have been _stealing_ from it every other night - you would know that negligence is hardly my crime,” Andrew tossed back smoothly.

“Tell that to Matilda.” Neil shot him a look that was far too cheeky, then stepped to the side and made a grand gesture toward the plant in question.

Andrew kept his gaze firmly on Neil. “I will not explain myself to a plant.” At least, not in front of this impossible man.

Neil scoffed, pulling on a pair of thick gardening gloves with floral-patterned cuffs that Andrew hadn’t seen him pick up from anywhere obvious. “Why not? I’m sure you’re used to talking to them. What?” He paused when Andrew stilled and shot him a sharp, suspicious look. “Come on, no one has a garden like yours without actually talking to the plants. Do you think my house would look like this” -he gestured ambiguously with both hands- “if I treated the lot of these freeloaders like they were inanimate objects?”

“You sound like a crazy person,” Andrew intoned dryly. Then, after a beat of thought, he added: “Or a witch.” But it wasn’t like he was exactly _wrong_ , either.

Neil raised a finger. “Not a witch. Botanist. Bo-tan-ist. I study plants. Occasionally I liberate them from my neglectful neighbors. I do not use them for any kind of spellwork.”

Somehow, Andrew found this less convincing than the _botanist_ likely intended, though he refrained from commenting further on the matter. It was there again, the tension and the barely subdued… _something_ that might have been anger and night have been hurt. Whether he was a witch or not, Neil clearly had an opinion about being thought of as one and Andrew wanted nothing more than to poke at that weak spot. Instead, because apparently his brain did not seem to favor rational function while around this strange man, he asked, “Why study them?”

Andrew did not need to know why Neil, The Botanist, studied plants. He did not come here to _get to know him_ or something ridiculous like that. The only reason he was here was to check on Matilda. Now that he had done that he, logically, reasonably, had two options. One - he could take her and leave. Two - he could let Neil keep her, and _leave_. His purpose here had been accomplished, interaction could now cease.

Except Andrew did neither of those things. Rather, he followed Neil as he left the kitchen and headed deeper into the house, trailing along like some kind of morbidly curious duckling. He told himself it was only so that he could get the answer to the question he really hadn’t needed to ask in the first place. After all, if he was going to waste his interest on this annoying, probably at least _mildly_ insane thief - he might as well get his answers before he left.

Neil didn’t answer until they’d passed through the kitchen and into a narrow room just beyond it that functioned as a cross between a mud room and a storage closet for various botanical supplies.

“I’ve been around plants my whole life,” he said as he rustled through one of the overcrowded shelves. “Spent more time hiding in the greenhouse than I did… well, hiding anywhere else.” When he turned around he held another pair of thick canvas gloves, these ones with cactus-print cuffs, which he then tossed his way. Andrew caught them on reflex and spent a moment staring dumbly down at them until an offensive sound of _amusement_ dragged his attention back to the Bad Idea on the other side of the tiny room.

“You’re going to want to wear those,” said the Bad Idea, looking way too happy about all of this.

“Why?” Andrew was grateful he was able to keep his tone as flat as his glare, because his heart seemed to think he’d swallowed something toxic by the way it kept jumping around.

“I mean, you’re welcome to go without - but you of all people should know that harvesting aconite with your bare hands can get kinda uncomfortable.” Neil blinked innocently at him, and Andrew was too distracted by how criminally long his eyelashes were to be offended by the terrible ruse.

“Did I say I was going to harvest your aconite?”

“Flirt.” Neil grinned and Andrew almost choked on the air rapidly getting twisted up between his lungs and his tongue.

Having absolutely nothing to say to that, Andrew just said, “Aconite.” Then he frowned and amended, “ _Wolfsbane?_ You want me to help you harvest some wolfsbane and you say you are not a witch.”

Neil gave a delicate sniff. “Says the man who wanders around in a dark, poisonous garden with a broom in the middle of the night.”

“That’s--”

“You knocked me down in a veritable _grove_ of _deadly nightshade_ ,” Neil cut in before he could defend himself.

“Okay fair.” Andrew sighed and tugged on the gloves, ignoring the way Neil’s pleased little smirk caused a traitorous flutter in his chest that was probably definitely annoyance. Maybe. “So are you going to tell me why I’m helping you harvest wolfsbane?”

Neil hummed and pushed open the door that led them out into the expanse that was the botanist’s land. “You don’t have any of your own.”

“So?” Andrew frowned as he followed Neil out and shut the door behind him. “There are a lot of plants I do not have.” For various reasons - chief of which was the ability to actually get his _hands_ on some of them. Particular plants, like aconite (and oleander, when ordering at a certain volume), were closely monitored because of their magical properties. Andrew did his best to get those sorts of plants without drawing unnecessary attention. He didn’t need the authorities thinking _he_ was a witch.

Not that it was illegal to be one or anything, this was a modern society after all, but Andrew really preferred to fly as under the radar as possible and people thinking he was a witch would be the _opposite_ of that. Which was why he really rather understood why Neil kept insisting that he was just a botanist even if he was, in fact, a witch.

Neil jumped down the three short steps of the back porch and turned to face him, hands on his hips again.

“I took Matilda from you,” he said with a sigh. “It’s only fair you get something of equal value in return. Come on, you can choose the ones you want and I’ll help you bring them over.” Then he shrugged, like it was just that damn simple, and began striding down the broken-stone path.

Andrew stared after him for a long moment, doing his best to ignore the fluttering in his chest. Only when he was sure that he had himself under control did he follow Neil down the steps and along the cracked, winding path. This meant nothing, he told himself. It was _nothing_. Just a couple of neighbors who both liked plants, exchanging poisonous black-market flora. It was totally casual. After this, Andrew would never even have to _see_ Neil again, really. Not if he didn’t want to.

And he didn’t.

Really.


	2. Yellow Jessamine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Featuring hot days, hot cars, an italicized 'oh', and the inherent eroticism of applying sunscreen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone to commented and gave kudos to the first chapter!!! <3 <3 <3 I'm so glad y'all are enjoying it! ^_^ This was a super fun chapter to write because I got to just... indulge myself with how much of a disaster I could make these two around each other.

_“Several cases of poisoning of children have been reported from chewing or sucking nectar from the [yellow jessamine] flowers. Symptoms may include sweating, pain in the eyes, double vision, headache, dry mouth, respiratory failure, nausea, prostration, and death… Honey derived from the flowers is regarded as toxic.” -- ‘Peterson Field Guides: Venomous Animals & Poisonous Plants’ by Steven Foster and Roger Caras_

-

Andrew saw Neil again _literally_ the very next day. And the day after that. And two days after that. Honestly, over the next several weeks there were more days that he _did_ see Neil than days that he didn’t. Sometimes he would stop by just long enough to check in on Matilda before he made his escape. Other times he would spend hours with Neil in one of the various pockets of the botanist’s land, talking with him as they collected samples of this or sketched pictures of that.

Unlike Andrew, Neil did not exclusively grow plants that were regarded as poisonous. He also didn’t necessarily _grow_ things in an organized fashion _at all_. Andrew’s garden was neat and carefully maintained. Neil’s land had been overtaken by various breeds of flora that seemed to have developed their own culture, hierarchy, and greater society outside the confines of human intervention.

(Andrew absolutely recognized the irony of Neil’s rampant botanical free-for-all, considering how much shit he’d given him about ‘smothering’ and ‘neglecting’ poor Matilda.)

((Which was ridiculous, by the way. Oleander trees were incredibly resilient. Perhaps Matilda had been growing in smaller than her sisters but that didn’t mean she was unhealthy or weak. There was nothing inherently _weak_ about being small, thank you very fucking much. And no, he did not have a complex about it.))

Today, though, Andrew wasn’t actually coming over to fuss around in Neil’s botanical habitats. On his third visit he had allowed curiosity to divert him from the path to the front door so he could instead check out the old car he had noticed being slowly absorbed into the overgrowth of Neil’s wilds. That car, he had quickly discovered, was a fucking 1947 Maserati Gran Turismo (an _A6 1500_ to be precise) and despite the way the weeds and various flora had curled around the car, it wasn’t nearly as derelict as it first appeared.

Which was why he was here today with his tool kit instead of his gardening shears. He’d spent a little bit of time here and there over the past week or so clearing the space around the car and now he was finally ready to get some work done on it. Because Neil was an idiot and didn’t realize the wonder that was sitting in his own front drive. When Andrew had pointed it out to him, he was bewildered (and a little offended if he was being honest) by the uncaring shrug Neil had given him in response. He’d said that the car had been a gift from his uncle, but he hadn’t actually driven it because he didn’t like to drive. Instead, he rode his bike, walked, or just took public transportation. On the rare occasion that he _did_ need to drive somewhere, he used the brand-fucking-new SUV that was _also_ a gift from this mysterious uncle.

The SUV was the one Neil parked in the garage. Because he was a sacrilegious lunatic.

Andrew had attempted to explain this to him, but Neil had only watched him with an expression Andrew still couldn’t even _begin_ to decipher. Then the questionably sane botanist had pulled open the narrow junk drawer in the kitchen, fished something out, and tossed it to Andrew.

 _‘It’s yours then,’_ he’d said - easy as you please. Then he’d _hummed_ to himself as he traipsed off through the kitchen to head out back, leaving Andrew struck dumb where he stood, staring at the keys in his hand.

 _Keys._ Plural. Because attached to the key to the Maz was also a key to the front door, which Neil had waved off when Andrew had asked about and then attempted to return.

 _‘You’re over all the time anyway. I trust you.’_ Said the man who had installed motion detectors on his gate as well as a fairly impressive security system that was linked to every door and window. A security system Neil had then given Andrew the passcode to, since he “had a key anyway”.

It was a lot to digest, and made him feel way too many things at once. A tangle of fast-growing vines quickly taking over his nervous system with all the ruthless efficiency of a kudzu plant. So he’d done what he typically did best, and he shoved it all aside, curled his fingers around the keys, and told Neil that there were no takesies-backsies - that poor neglected _angel_ in the drive was _his_ now.

Then Neil had smiled at him, and Andrew had thought about that smile so much over the last week that it still teased him through the dark whenever he closed his eyes. It taunted him now, as he stood in front of the car, the shape of it both a warning and a promise Andrew hadn’t yet decided if he wanted to take the jump and believe.

“I thought you were going to fix up the car - oh, or can you do that with the power of your mind? Gotta say, that’s pretty impressive if you can.”

Andrew barely managed not to jump at the familiar voice from just over his left shoulder. Neil, that sneaky little fuck, must have come up on him from somwhere else in the front yard. If he’d been up at the house, Andrew would have seen him approach the driveway.

Instead of commenting, Andrew just turned his head to shoot him a sharp glare.

Neil just grinned cheekily at him. “Does that mean you can’t?”

“One of these days, someone is going to show you just how not-funny you are in the form of physical retaliation to your persistent stupidity,” Andrew said as dryly as possible.

“Eh.” Neil shrugged. “Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Had to, actually - because the one I went in with ended up soaked in blood.” He gestured ambiguously to his face and the scars on his arms in a totally nonchalant way that in no way matched the tone of those injuries.

Someone else might have been stunned into an awkward silence. Or might have attempted to apologize or slather platitudes over the social faux-pas. Andrew took his time to scan his gaze over the evidence of each slash and burn he could see - which was quite a bit, seeing as Neil was wearing a short-sleeved tee to accommodate the warm weather. Neil waited patiently, watching him as he looked his fill.

When he had, Andrew met his eyes and said, “Clearly they didn’t realize who they were dealing with.”

Neil remained impassive for a moment, then he gave the smallest of smiles - his lips parting in a quiet huff of a laugh. He lifted one hand and turned around. “Have fun with your baby or your ride or your dream boat or whatever you car guys say. I’ll be taming down the Jessicas.”

Andrew didn’t ask who ‘the Jessicas’ were, but considering the man’s shorts barely hit mid-thigh and were fitted so nicely, he _did_ watch him walk away.

-*-

Perhaps in other parts of the country, April existed in this mythical limbo called “spring”. In South Carolina, April was really just pre-June. Which meant that while the mornings usually started out fine, the sun turned into a veritable fucking _demon_ the closer it got to midday. Any clinging vestiges of winter or “spring” - those cool breezes and lungfuls of fresh, clear air that blessed you from time to time like kisses from God - were smothered under layers of humidity so thick that Andrew was probably replenishing all the water lost from sweating just by _breathing_.

Now, when Andrew had first started working, it hadn’t yet hit the hottest part of the day, and so even with his usual layers he only peripherally noticed the discomfort. Then the day was dragged forward by the steady rise of the scathing sun higher and higher overhead - and Andrew really started to notice how this particular patch of Neil’s property seemed completely devoid of all shade. The combination of undershirt, arm bands, and long-sleeved shirt (all in black) became more and more suffocating until finally he _had_ to reevaluate his situation.

The next time he rolled out from under the car to get a swig of water, Andrew stood up and stretched, looking around for Neil out of habit (not that he regularly looked for Neil, just that he liked to be aware of where other people were - that’s all it was). The troublesome botanist had spent the entire morning steadily working his way along the large stone wall that surrounded his property, trimming and occasionally making notes about the overwhelming cascade of Carolina jessamine that occupied and spilled over the top of the wall.

These, Andrew had learned when Neil had brought him a pitcher of water about an hour into working, were ‘the Jessicas’. Yellow jessamine was South Carolina’s state flower, and Andrew might have attempted to tease Neil about being weirdly loyal to his state of residence if not for the fact that yellow jessamine were also incredibly _toxic_ , made even more dangerous because of how closely they resembled honeysuckles.

Dressing his property with the state flower in a show of weird local patriotism wasn’t exactly this particular botanist’s speed. Nurturing the plants out of irony and then hanging six signs on the outer wall that all said ‘ **DON’T SUCK THE FLOWERS THEY WILL KILL YOU** ’?

Yeah, that was more like it.

Neil was more than halfway down the wall now, but still seemed to sense Andrew’s movement - or maybe he could feel his eyes on him - because he looked up from where he was hunched over the top of the wall, perched precariously on his ladder. He grinned and gave a small wave, apparently completely unbothered by the suffocating heat. Then again, Neil was dressed in tiny shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, whereas Andrew admittedly dressed like he’d be marked unmarriageable by the marquess should he dare flash an ankle.

Going back to the house to change into a short-sleeve shirt was too much of a hassle - even though in the back of his mind he knew that it was probably the smarter choice, because then he could apply the sunscreen he really should have put on before coming over this morning - so Andrew just stripped off the long-sleeved overshirt, tossing it to the side as he turned back toward the car, and went back to work.

Or at least, he _would_ have gone back to work - if it weren’t for the sudden shout and crash on the other side of the yard. Andrew whipped around to find the source, and despite the sea of utter chaos that was Neil’s front lawn, he quickly spotted the heap of limbs and ladder that marked where Neil had toppled from where he had been working.

Andrew was moving before he gave his feet permission to do so. First it was one step, then another, and then he was running, vaulting over broken stones (and was that a severed tricycle?) and dodging various flora he’d seen Neil sidestep around before. In less than three seconds he had cleared the space between them and was sliding to his knees to shove the ladder off the clumsy fucking idiot beneath it. Swear to fucking God, if this stupid little asshole broke his goddamn neck or fractured his fucking spine because he didn’t know how to properly climb a ladder of all things...

“Don’t move,” Andrew hissed in warning when Neil winced and made like he was going to try to get up as soon as the ladder was shoved off him. Displaying probably the first hint of sense in his disaster-driven life, Neil stilled and settled back against the ground.

“I’m fi--”

Andrew’s glare was sharp enough to cut him off without the need to verbalize his threat. _Don’t you dare._ When Neil sighed and pressed his lips together obediently, Andrew nodded and tore his gaze away from Neil’s to be able to scan him for signs of injury.

“Can I touch you?” he asked when nothing appeared to be bleeding or visibly broken.

Neil coughed lightly and when Andrew looked back at his face he saw that the prone botanist was suddenly flushed. Narrowing his eyes, he pushed up higher on his knees and leaned over him, bracing one hand beside Neil’s head so he could use the other to gently pull off the stupid orange bandana he was always wearing. “Neil,” he said - both in question and as reprimand - once he’d set the horrid thing aside, hovering his hand now over the other man’s tousled auburn hair.

“Y-yes. I mean. Yeah. Sure. Anytime. I mean, yes. Go ahead.”

Andrew frowned, glancing down to briefly meet Neil’s eyes before focusing again on the top of his head as he gently sifted his fingers through his hair, searching for bumps or blood. Below him, Neil’s breath caught and Andrew paused.

“Does it hurt there?” he asked, prodding the spot gently.

“Uh. No… no it doesn’t hurt. Um. A-all. All good.”

Andrew snorted. Idiot.

Once he completed his inspection of Neil’s scalp he pulled back enough so that he could use both hands to carefully check his neck to make sure there was no pain or stiffness when he moved it. Only when he had then checked both arms, wrists, knees, and ankles did he finally hold out both hands to help Neil sit fully up - not trusting the dumbass to do it without hurting himself.

“Uhm. Thanks. I’m alright though, really,” Neil said as he twisted his back this way and that. He flashed a small grin before pushing to his feet. “Though this is probably a good time to take a break anyway.”

Andrew looked longingly back toward the Maz, and was about to say that Neil could take a break but _he_ was going to get back to work when Neil said, “I made some pie this morning before you came over.”

“Pie?” Andrew looked back over at Neil. The clumsy little fool seemed to have recovered his bearings because he was smirking cheekily at him.

Neil nodded. “Chocolate cream,” he elaborated.

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “You don’t like chocolate.”

“You do.” Neil’s shrug matched the easiness of his tone - like that was just… a thing now. Neil making chocolate pies for Andrew just because Andrew liked them - that was a thing that happened. Something swarmed inside him, buzzing between his ribs and scaling the inside of his lungs like the spark of a flashfire - sudden and hot and all-consuming.

Perhaps it was time to get out of the heat.

Instead of saying anything, Andrew turned and started heading for the house. Behind him, Neil chuckled as he followed.

-*-

The pie was fucking _delicious_. Andrew ate two slices before Neil covered it up again and tucked it into the fridge, then proceeded to stand guard in front of it - declaring that Andrew wouldn’t get another bite until they’d both eaten lunch. Since Neil had made the pie, Andrew made them both sandwiches - because even in the air conditioned house there was no fucking way he was turning on the stove to actually cook up anything.

Even though he’d only taken off his shirt for the last ten or so minutes they were outside (seeing as Neil took his tumble right afterwards), his skin still felt tight like he’d absorbed too much sun too quickly. The back of his neck and his face - which hadn’t been protected at all - were the worst, and he was pretty sure he was already burned.

This was confirmed when, after lunch and while Andrew was digging into his fourth slice of pie in total, Neil entered the kitchen from the stairs that lead directly up to the actual _tower_ that branched off the house - good as any neon sign that might proclaim ‘WITCH LIVES HERE! HERE HE IS!’ He was holding a small bottle as he came back into the room.

“Found it!” he said with a grin, giving the bottle a triumphant wiggle. “I knew I’d left it up in the workroom.”

Andrew took a slow bite of pie and gave him a blank look.

Neil rolled his eyes, but didn’t lose the smile. To be fair, it was a nice smile and deserved to stick around. “Sunscreen,” he explained as he dropped into the chair next to Andrew. Matilda had grown nicely and was now in a slightly larger planter just inside the living room and since Andrew had been coming over Neil had decided to relocate the other plants that had been occupying the kitchen table so that they’d have a place to sit and eat when they took breaks from the various gardens, wilds, and the very impressive greenhouse Andrew had only discovered in his second week of visits.

“Sunscreen,” Andrew repeated dubiously, eying the handwritten label.

“I made it myself.” Neil screwed open the lid and sniffed it, then offered it to Andrew. Sighing so that Neil knew how much of an imposition it was, Andrew set down his fork and accepted the bottle. He sniffed it as well, curious when it didn’t smell like the typical sunscreen he usually bought in the store. He’d never met a sunscreen that didn’t vividly smell of, well, _sunscreen_.

“What’s in it?” he asked after taking another sniff. He dabbed a finger on the swirl of pale lotion and rubbed it on the back of his hand. It was more oily than he expected, but absorbed quickly once it was on his skin.

“Mostly? Alfalfa and alexandrian laurel.”

“No coconut oil?”

“I’m allergic. It’s one of the reasons I decided to make my own.”

“Huh.” Andrew rolled the bottle in his hand and stared at the label again - and now that he was actually paying attention he was able to decipher Neil’s sharp scrawl. “Did you really call it ‘Delobsterfication Cream’?”

When he looked up to give Neil the full weight of his judgement, the botanist just shrugged and plucked the bottle out of his hand. “It’s an accurate description.”

“It implies that it _cures_ sunburn, not prevents it,” Andrew corrected.

“Which is exactly what it does.”

“You said it was sunscreen.”

“Well yes it does that too.” Neil dabbed a small amount of the _Delobsterfication Cream_ into his palm, then proceeded to rub his hands together to lightly coat them before distributing the cream along his arms. Instead of spreading it evenly over his skin in broad strokes, though, Neil was massaging the thin lotion gently around the multitude of scars that Andrew hadn’t yet learned the story of. He worked the lotion in, first up one arm and then the other - pausing only briefly when he noticed Andrew watching him.

“Some of my scars are photosensitive,” he said lightly as he returned to his process, brushing his thumb over one of the many circular burns of unknown origin that filled the space between vicious slashes clearly caused by a knife in the hand of a psychopath. Andrew had seen the scars many times by now. He didn’t know what had happened to put them there but there was no mistaking their deliberate execution. Normally Andrew honestly didn’t pay them much mind, though. They were just another part of Neil that was neither as interesting nor as distracting as the infuriating man’s smile or his eyes or the random shit he said that always managed to take Andrew off his guard.

So why, if he had never really found those scars interesting enough to hold his attention before, was he suddenly fixated on the way Neil’s hands carefully worked over them?

The impulse to take over - to be the one applying the lotion on the other man’s skin, touching each mark, soothing their sting - hit him so vividly out of absolutely fucking _nowhere_ that Andrew missed it when Neil said something. He only knew that something else had been said at all because Neil’s hands paused for a long enough moment that Andrew snapped out of his weird fixation.

“Andrew?” Neil asked, one brow raised - curious but not concerned.

“What?” He pretended not to be embarrassed so convincingly even _he_ almost believed himself.

Neil studied him for a moment, then the corner of his mouth quirked in a way that Andrew had quickly learned to identify as a prelude to trouble. “I said that you should use some. It’ll help with your burn and protect you when we head back outside.” He hummed in thought, then picked up the bottle again, pausing with it half tilted like he was about to dab some more onto his palm.

Then he asked, “May I?”

“May you… what?” But Andrew figured it out halfway through the question. His stomach dropped at the same time that his heart swelled and rose to get lodged in his throat, tethered to over-inflated lungs and dragging them along as well. It was like being torn in half, bisected by things he wasn’t sure he was even allowed to want but was too stubborn to push away completely.

He must have been quiet for too long because Neil straightened the bottle and dropped his other hand. He had the sunscreen half extended in offering for Andrew to anoint himself when Andrew finally found his voice and said, “Yes.”

There was a weighted pause. Neil met his eyes and _read_ them, leaving just enough of a pause for Andrew to change his mind before he pulled the bottle back toward himself with a nod.

“Arms and shoulders?” he clarified as he tapped the sunscreen into one palm.

Andrew hummed in consent and turned in his chair to face him since it wasn’t like Neil would have to put much on his back. Two heartbeats later Neil had taken one of Andrew’s elbows in his empty hand, neatly skipping past the arm band - and Andrew realized how fucking _stupid_ he was.

Because this was the first time that Neil had ever touched him. _Andrew_ had been touching _Neil_ damn near compulsively since the day they met - a hand on his arm, a shove to the shoulder, a touch to his back, a hurried but thorough inspection to make sure nothing was broken when he fell off that ladder… which included running fingers through his hair.

(Fuck, Andrew wanted to run his fingers through his hair again and actually pay attention to the sensation this time.)

Right now though? Right now Neil was touching Andrew and there was reverence in that touch. The hand cradling his elbow was steady but the one lightly smoothing the sunscreen over his bicep nearly trembled. When Andrew looked from where those fingers splayed across his skin to meet Neil’s eyes he saw not only careful concentration in that fathomless blue but the way Neil’s lips parted slightly on a shallow breath and the touch of color to his throat and cheeks that… was not an unfamiliar expression. Andrew had seen it before on Neil over the last several weeks, scattered between sharp smirks and throw-away comments that might have been genuine flirting and might have been Neil just being a contrary asshole.

Except now Andrew knew the answer to that is-it, is-it-not question he’d worked so hard not to think about.

“Neil.” Andrew’s voice was quiet but it _felt_ louder than it was, thanks to the stillness that had fallen over the kitchen.

Neil responded like he’d been given a command to stop, both hands pulling away just enough to leave a three-inch barrier between them and Andrew’s skin. His eyes remained locked on Andrew’s, expression closed for just a moment before it relaxed into something almost sheepish.

“Wanna know why I fell off the ladder?” Neil asked after one more beat of silence. It was such a random fucking question that Andrew frowned at him in annoyance - because they were having a fucking _moment_ here, and Josten wanted to bring up his fucking clumbsiness _now?_ Neil laughed at his expression, a half-groaned self-deprecating chuckle that ended with a sigh before he said, “Andrew - it was because you _took off your shirt_.”

Oh.

_Oh._

So.

Well.

Neil’s expression shifted again, this time from vaguely amused embarrassment to something sweeter and much more infuriatingly pleased.

“We need to put some of this on your face too, don’t let me forget.”

Jesus Christ, Neil. Andrew gritted his teeth and glared at him, which only made Neil fucking _glow_. Andrew hated how beautiful he was when he was happy like this. He hated hated _hated_ it and he wanted to see it every damn day if he could get away with it.

Andrew followed Neil’s gaze as he broke away to look back down at where Andrew’s arm was hovering between them. He nodded toward it. “Shall I?”

It crossed his mind to tell Neil ‘no’. Because if he was going to be a brat about all of this then there was no reason when Andrew should indulge him. Except Andrew _wanted_ to indulge him. Moreover, Andrew _wanted_ to feel Neil’s hands on him again.

So, he sighed and gave a nod of consent. “If this shit turns me purple or something, I _will_ stab you.”

Neil laughed and then those hands gently surrounded his arm again, one under his elbow and the other folded over his bicep. Andrew’s heartbeat stumbled and shook at the contact, and he suddenly had to fight back the impulse to swallow.

“Andrew you literally _just_ saw me put it on myself.”

“Maybe it doesn’t affect-" Andrew stopped and changed the word right before he said it "-botanists in the same way.”

Neil studied him for a moment, then his expression softened to something far more dangerous in it's fondness before he said, "I don't think it works like that."

Andrew watched Neil’s face as he rubbed in the lotion, and despite the steadiness of both the idiot’s hands and the playful grin he was still wearing, there was absolutely no disguising the way he’d started to blush again. Maybe Andrew felt annoyed, but he couldn’t deny that he also felt a certain bit _pleased_ as well.

The five minutes it took Neil to apply sunscreen to both arms and shoulders were probably the most sexually frustrating two hours of Andrew’s goddamn life. It might have helped if they’d talked at all during the process - but Neil was preoccupied with Andrew, and Andrew was preoccupied with Neil’s stupidly attractive blush, and his eyes, and his mouth, and --

Look, it was a trial.

What was worse, when Neil finished using just the tips of his fingers to rub lotion into the back of Andrew’s neck he pulled his hands back and dabbed just a little bit more of the sunscreen onto his fingertips before hovering them near Andrew’s cheeks. His voice was soft and a little bit breathy (Jesus fuck why did it have to be _breathy?_ ) when he then asked, “May I?”

Andrew’s own was rougher than he’d ever later be willing to admit when he answered (without even fucking _hesitating_ ), “Yes.”

Neil’s fingers touched his cheek, the heat of them somehow still noticeable even through the initial coolness of the lotion. Those blue eyes followed the path his fingertips made as they gently smoothed the lotion over his cheek and up his temple, over his forehead and down his nose before mirroring the journey along the other side. Andrew didn’t even realize that he’d stopped breathing until his lungs started to burn in protest.

It was when both Neil’s hands gently cupped his face so he could smooth the last of the healing sunscreen over the crests of his cheeks and under his eyes with just the pads of his thumbs that Andrew realized how close they’d gotten. That he realized Neil wasn’t really rubbing in the lotion anymore as much as he was just… _holding_ him.

Something warm and brittle softened and curled inside his chest.

“Andrew--”

“I want to kiss you.” He said the words before he could think to pull them back.

“Then kiss me.”

It was such a cheeky fucking answer. It was so… so _Neil_ \- and Andrew didn’t see a damn reason why he shouldn’t follow through.

So he did. Then he did it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Maz](https://www.maseratiusa.com/us/en/brand/maserati-classic-cars/gran-turismo/1500-gran-turismo)
> 
> Fun Fact #2: I did legit research for this fic, including checking several books on botany out from the library and spending way too long scrolling through pictures of classic cars on the interwebs. The notebook I used to take notes on said research has a quote on it from _Strange the Dreamer_.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun Fact # 1: Each chapter was written to a different Taylor Swift song.


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